Saturday, April 25, 2009

BHO May Cancel White House's Observance of National Day of Prayer

President Harry Truman signed this special day into law back in 1952. Reagan designated the first Thursday of May as the official National Day of Prayer. George W. Bush brought the observance to the East Room of the White House.

Every year since 2001, then-President George W. Bush's calendar had been cleared on the first Thursday in May to mark the National Day of Prayer in the White House East Room with prominent evangelicals.

Now the Obama White House is facing questions of inside-the-Beltway etiquette: Should President Obama maintain the open door to conservative critics like James and Shirley Dobson, and if so, should they accept?

Or, will the White House have an official observance at all?

With those questions unanswered less than two weeks before the annual observance, the National Day of Prayer Task Force, headed by Shirley Dobson, is moving ahead with other plans.

"We're not the coordinators of that event," said Brian Toon, vice chairman of the task force. "That's controlled completely by the White House. We have been honored to be guests at the event in the past, but we have not heard a peep from them."

In years past, Toon said, a White House liaison had contacted the ministry at least a month in advance to ask about its participation in the White House events, which featured music, Scripture readings and remarks by the president and Shirley Dobson....

Focus on the Family, previously prominent at the East Room observances of the day, will move to Capitol Hill that morning. Apparently Focus on the Family is not welcome at the BHO White House - or so the silence from the White House so indicates.

I do wonder if BHO will have some kind of "interfaithing" National Day of Prayer, featuring an imam. Time will tell - provided the media will report the story.